


Good Enough

by Castelau



Series: Half-breed, Half-truth, Half-life [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Angst, Baby Keith (Voltron), F/M, Heath for Keith's father
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-27
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-11-06 18:00:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,047
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17944463
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Castelau/pseuds/Castelau
Summary: Keith's father deals with Krolia leaving and what that entails.





	Good Enough

**Author's Note:**

> Ok so ORIGINALLY this was part of a massive fic but... I haven't got the time to finish that to my liking this side of 2021 so I'm splitting it and turning it into a series of one-shots and rambles.

Watching the craft take off, Heath was struck for the very first time with a stabbing emptiness.   
  
The engines faded away with a high pinched whine and as that faded from his ears, a different sound reached them, the plaintive, insistent crying of their son. No. His son.   
He turned away from the desert that now felt a great deal more hostile and unwelcoming than it had done in a long time, and went inside.   
Keith was his son now, no more shared responsibility or being on call and willing to throw himself into burning buildings at the drop of a hat. No more late night shifts followed by trips to the bar before falling into bed, pliant and carefree beside her.   
  
He just hoped he was a good enough dad.   
  
Neither of them were really ideal parents, but somehow they had made it work.   
Heath himself hadn’t had the greatest of upbringings to fall back on for experience, nor did he have the support of any family to fall back on with this even if he’d wanted them there. Army brat, fighter pilot, dishonourably discharged vet. The Galaxy Garrison had picked him up, dusted him off and polished out the dings in his reputation, but even they had dropped him in the end. Called him a loose canon, told him he was space mad from stress and had promptly kicked him out. He’d hated orange and grey anyways. There was no explaining away what he’d seen.  
The fire station had been good for him. They were good people, guys from all walks of life and nobody did anything more than laugh good-naturedly when he’d sworn blind that aliens were real and that he’d seen them up in space.   
Turns out, the Garrison purged all data related to him and with it, any proof he’d ever had.  
  
He’d been content, the pay was shit, but the house was built on a natural spring and he’d botched together solar panels, so his income covered the bills just fine. He knew what he had seen and it hadn’t exactly inspired him to turn his eyes to the skies ever again. That ship, grey and purple, thin as a razor and ten times as deadly, had filled him with an indescribable fear even if it had been little more than a fuzzy object at the very edge of their sensors’ capabilities. He had no desire to see one any closer.  
  
Then… Then he’d been woken up by an inhuman screeching and the sensation of the desert rippling with a shockwave. A meteor? No, too big.  
  
_The thing had been half on fire, half steaming from the cold of space when he’d gotten to it and his guts had rolled in fear at the shape of the craft. It wasn’t anything like the ship he’d seen from Calypso, but he knew in his heart that it had to be related.  
What did they want with earth?   
Were more coming?  
_  
_He stopped that negative train of thought when he heard a scraping sound inside, followed by a groan of pain. Shit.  
No matter what sort of creature was in there, he’d taken an oath to protect people, and he couldn’t very well leave a sentient creature to burn to death.   
  
Heath shouldered the axe he’d brought out with him, picked what looked like the weakest plate at the front of the craft and used the axe to rip it off. If the metal hadn’t had been weakened and made brittle already, he wouldn’t have stood a chance, but it came apart with a shrill squeal that made him wince and then he peered in.   
  
Glass crunched and yellow eyes met his own.  
_  
  
The crying only got more frantic once he was inside. Heath glanced out the window again. The craft was little more than a twinkling light, rapidly fading away in the dark of the night sky.   
Keith’s bellowing, and that was what it was rapidly becoming, was skull splitting in volume. “Hey… Hey kiddo.” He leaned over the edge of the crib, trying not to wince in pain as the babe cried his heart out, face red and screwed up with anguish. “What’s wrong?”  
  
_The alien was tall, lanky yet clearly strong but the instant their eyes met, its expression turned to the most universally recognisable one, fear.  
  
It bared its teeth, feral looking as it raised one clawed hand. The motion could have been in defence, but it was pitiful considering the blood running down its face and the dark mottling across the back of its clawed hand.   
Then, it collapsed bonelessly.   
  
He hadn’t known what else to do apart from carry it inside. The alien was far too big for the couch, so without even a second thought he removed the most damaged pieces of its armour and the ruined helmet.   
It was a truly savage looking creature, all sharp angles and wiry muscle without a scrap of excess weight on its narrow frame. There was something dangerous about it, something that spoke of a creature made for fighting. What that was, he didn’t quite know, but he didn’t want to put those teeth or claws to the test.   
  
After removing the armour, he was relatively certain that the creature wasn’t seriously injured, but another thought came to mind - what if it didn’t breathe oxygen? There was every possibility that their atmosphere wasn’t compatible with alien life, but there was nothing he could do about that beyond waiting to see if it would wake up. _  
  
He picked up his son as best he could, Keith thrashing against his hold even as he lifted him up. Tiny hands pushed him away and then he finally opened his eyes. Yellow flashed at Heath and he cursed, reminding himself not to drop his _son_.   
Admittedly, he didn’t usually have yellow eyes and needle sharp teeth, but there had to be some rational explanation for that.  
  
“Uud!” Keith wailed, and those eyes had gone from being filled with feral anger to utter sadness.  
Oh.   
_Oh._  
He’d heard that vocalisation plenty of times before. It was the one request he couldn’t fulfil. “I’m sorry.” He whispered, rocking his son against his chest as his eyes threatened to force him to join Keith in crying. 


End file.
